


Fire Meets Gasoline

by smaragdbird



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Betrayal, First Kiss, Loss of Trust, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Road Trips, Trust Issues, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 10:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7636579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Nick Fury hadn’t asked him for a favour, Steve wouldn’t be here. He would not be on a mission with a former Hydra agent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Meets Gasoline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



> Thank you for such an awesome prompt. 
> 
> (and I totally agree with your opinion on Rumlow in cacw ;)

If Nick Fury hadn’t asked him for a favour, Steve wouldn’t be here. He would not be in the passenger seat of this car, on a dusty road in a country that he hadn’t known existed before the ice. But after Fury had had saved them all in Sokovia, Steve hadn’t really been able to refuse him. Now he wondered what Fury intended with this. If there was one thing Steve knew then that Fury always had hidden intentions in his actions, in his words.

“Are you going to glare at me for the whole trip?” Rumlow asked without taking his eyes from the road. “It’s going to get stuck like this.”

A little more than a year ago Steve’s answer would’ve matched Rumlow’s teasing tone. Now though his scowl deepened. “You tried to kill me, remember?”

It was hard to tell behind the sunglasses but Steve thought that Rumlow rolled his eyes. He didn’t say anything else though. Still Steve couldn’t look away from him. Not that the landscape held anything interesting either but even if it had, Steve thought he would have still stared at Rumlow. 

From the passenger seat Steve could only see the right side of his face. Angry red scars crossed it between twisted skin. He knew the left side looked even worse, as if Rumlow’s face had melted. But then he had survived a collapsing building and a crashed helicarrier. Steve still remembered how hard, how painful survival could be. And yet Rumlow moved as if his scars didn’t bother him at all. 

Rumlow was humming along under his breath to the radio, like he used to do during the missions he and Steve had been on together for Shield and Steve wondered how much of it all had been lie. 

“Why did you do it?” Steve asked. At the time he had simply accepted that Rumlow was Hydra, that he was Steve’s enemy. Why people did the things they did had never mattered to Steve. But after the deal with Ultron...Stark was a good man and he had done bad things out of good intentions. Maybe the reason why people acted the way they did, did matter after all.

“Why did I do what?” Rumlow asked back.

“Work for Hydra.”

Rumlow’s lips twisted into a smile. “Career advancement.” When Steve scoffed disbelievingly, he added, “No, really, at the start that was what it was. A few extra missions here, a hidden objective there. The money was pretty good and I rose through the ranks more quickly.”

“And that was enough to betray Shield?”

Rumlow snorted. “Shield wasn’t much better. Their end goal was different but the methods were mostly the same.”

“Mostly”, Steve echoed with disgust, thinking about Bucky.

“It must be nice to live in your world where everyone is either good or bad”, Rumlow sighed and shook his head. “You don’t get it. I was paid to follow orders. And I was damn good at my job because I didn’t let myself be compromised by personal feelings.”

“Is that why Fury hired you?” Steve asked. It seemed strange that Fury would trust a Hydra agent with this mission, any mission really.

“Fury knows the value of a mercenary with a good sense of professionalism.”

“Is that what you think it was, professionalism, when you tried to kill me?” Steve couldn’t keep the bitterness or the anger from his voice.

“I told you it wasn’t personal.”

“How could it not be personal?” Steve didn’t yell but it was a close thing. He couldn’t figure out why Rumlow’s betrayal out of everyone he had known at Shield rankled him so much. Was it because he had thought they had been friends?

Rumlow stopped the car and turned to face him properly, even taking off his sunglasses to do it. “You’re trying to tell me that you held a personal grudge against every soldier back in World War 2 that you killed? Every Hydra Agent? Every drug dealer, every weapons smuggler, every piece of scum we took out for Shield? That was all personal to you?”

“That’s different. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t pretend to be their friend for two years.” Steve’s voice was shaking with anger.

“Pretend?” Rumlow raised his eyebrows. “You think I pretended? I’m a better spy than I thought I was.”

“Fuck you”, Steve told him and got out of the car. He had barely taken more than a couple steps before Rumlow called after him.

“You know Rogers, this is exactly why I hoped Fury would send Romanov instead of you. At least she’s a professional.”

Steve turned around. “You think she would forgive you?” He scoffed.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Rumlow asked. “I don’t want your forgiveness because I don’t think I did anything wrong.”

The words stung more than Steve had expected. “Then why don’t you kill me right now? You have a weapon, use it.”

“That’s not my orders anymore.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your orders. I thought you were my friend.” They were close enough that Steve could’ve hit Rumlow if he had wanted to. He was breathing heavily and adrenaline was singing in his veins.

“I was”, Rumlow said with such certainty that it took Steve aback. “What do you want to hear from me, Steve?”

“That you’re sorry for trying to kill me”, Steve said, the words barely above a whisper.

“I’m not”, Rumlow replied. “But I’m sorry for something else.”

Steve expected to feel a knife between his rips, expected, despite Rumlow’s words, for him to want to finish the job. He didn’t expect to feel Rumlow’s lips against his own. It was like a puzzle piece sliding into place that Steve hadn’t even known was missing. And suddenly the picture made sense when he opened his mouth to Rumlow, when his hands pulled Rumlow closer.

“I can’t”, Steve said, breathing raggedly. A single kiss shouldn’t be able to shift his worldview like this. It shouldn’t make so much sense in a situation like theirs. “I don’t trust you.”

“That’s okay”, Rumlow said. “You don’t need to trust me.” He pulled away from Steve. “Come on, we have a mission. And what happens afterwards...doesn’t matter right now.”

Steve nodded. He could live with that.


End file.
